And three of those were far from fine examples of exciting rugby, with punters kept on the edge of their seats. In fact, the league game at Headingley was so dire, had I not been a guest, I would have walked.

Tried it once before, it was crap then and it would be crap now. Someone who knew something about promotion and marketing might be able to raise a crowd but FFS this is the RFL we're talking about!

If it spawns a thread that runs for over 230 pages spanning 6 years and polarises opinion across the fan base then I'm all for it.

The draw of the WCC is because it is billed as the winners being the best team in the world.
The reality is it's a jet lagged second string Aussie side still in their pre-season, taking on the SL champions who are 4 games into their season, in England. It's nonsensical.

I don't think they'd even want to play. Hull are in Australia for a large part of February. Complete non-starter.

Nice reference for those of a certain vintage. IIRC Russell Smith didn't hesitate but no surprises there.

Re choice of venue would Elland Road even be big enough?

Quote: tvoc "Nice reference for those of a certain vintage. IIRC Russell Smith didn't hesitate but no surprises there. '" He didn't but it's hard to argue in retrospect (although it was hardly the worst foul ever in terms of impact with Nigel Wright). https://youtu.be/IUukTEmb5rg?t=16s These highlights don't show everything but why did Leeds kick a penalty when already 10-0 down?

Quote: tvoc "Nice reference for those of a certain vintage. IIRC Russell Smith didn't hesitate but no surprises there. '" He didn't but it's hard to argue in retrospect (although it was hardly the worst foul ever in terms of impact with Nigel Wright). https://youtu.be/IUukTEmb5rg?t=16s These highlights don't show everything but why did Leeds kick a penalty when already 10-0 down?

5 wasnt it. 2 times in the league 1 in the super 8s, 1 in the cup, 1 in the playoffs.

If we do scrap it, which i think we should do rather than continue to half it, we should do a 9s comp somewhere warm to start the year or a magic style weekend where every game is televised but on the road games sold to bidding cities.

Don't see anything with having the challenge cup winners take on the champions in a big event but like everything it needs to be put into a full fixture list which makes sense for everyone. At the moment we don't have any room with so many games and there still isn't a real international window.

Joined up thinking is what is needed.

Why not play it as the first game of the season, as Leeds' home game vs Hull, but make a bigger deal out of it?

What we don't need is more meaningless fixtures - the WCC looks dead in the water so just see the positive its one less fixture to screw up the start of the season.

I agree. He had a look of real class about him. Reminded me a little bit of Tony Myler, who had similar terrible luck with injuries.

Ditto, I did hope that Liam Sutcliffe would develop on similar lines to those two - minus the injuries obviously.

We will be sunning ourselves in Oz in Feb lol better than a wet night in leeds

The Storm scheduling a testimonial game around the same date may have put the final nail in the WCC coffin. Unless we play them in Oz they won't be interested and would probably send a bunch of reserves over if they are forced to take part. They might do the same even if we play them here.

There was a case for cancelling the WCC next season due to the World Cup prolonging the season and needing to give players a break, but they can't use that argument given the testimonial game.